YOUR MAMA NOTES: Erstwhile Canadian media mogul Conrad Black famously lived phat, spending obscene amounts of money on jewelry, clothing and humongous homes around the world. His wife, noted columnist Barbara Amielonce said of herself in a Vogue magazine profile: "I have an extravagance that knows no bounds." Oh dear.

But oh lawhd children, how far the mighty and filthy stinking rich sometimes fall. The former head of Hollinger International (now the Sun-Times Media Group) is now shacking up in a prison cell at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Orlando, FL. after being convicted in a U.S. court on three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice. Uh oh. Mister Conrad, who renounced his Canadian citizenship in a blaze of publicity and was granted a lordship by the Queen of England in 2001, settled into his itty bitty new home in early March of 2008. His sentence is 78 long months, an amount of time our bejeweled abacus tells us is more than six years.

As one might expect in a time of white collar criminal crisis, expenses have to be sliced, diced and hacked away and thanks to Paulina Padlily in Palm Beach Your Mama has learned that Lord and Lady Black have put their large and lavish S. Ocean Boulevard spread on the market with an undisclosed asking price.

According to the Palm Beach tax man, the 2007 taxes alone were $471,082 and given that it's probably costs another million to operate and maintain a monstrous mansion like this, it kinda makes sense that the Blacks would want to be free of that considerable financial obligation. Besides, it appears they won't be using it much for the next five or six years.

Located on a princely parcel that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway, property records reveal that Lord and Lady Black purchased their chunk of Palm Beach paradise way back in July of 1997 for $9,900,000. Listing information indicates that the property was "completely rebuilt" in 2002 and includes 5 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms (records show 5 beds and 9.5 bathrooms and listing information would indicate there are multiple half bathrooms).

Other dee-luxe amenities on the property include his and her powder rooms, perfect for when there are 40 or 400 over for a charity function, a 52-foot swimming pool with an adjacent pool/guest house, a tennis court, also with an adjacent building, an elevator–because apparently really rich Lords and Ladees can't be bothered to walk up a single flight of stairs, a wine closet (natch), staff accommodations (natch, again), a large media room, a kitchen with commercial grade appliances, a master bedroom with his and her baths, private library and a tower computer room, and last but not least, a tunnel under S. Ocean Boulevard for accessing the beach without the indignity of dodging traffic in a boldly printed Lily Pulitzer shift and raffia beach mules.

Your Mama can't tell the children for how much this house is listed, but we can tell you that in 2007, the Palm Beach assessor valued the estate at $27,980,115. We would guess it's listed for between five and ten million smackers over that number, but that is just a damn guess children, so don't anyone report or repeat that like we know what we're talking about, because clearly we do not.

The Lord and Lady Black have long made their primary home in a big house on posh Park Lane Circle in the Bridle Path neighborhood, an area Your Mama has several times heard referred to as the Beverly Hills of Toronto. In 2005, the Blacks sold their New York City digs, a 4,500 square foot co-operative apartment at 635 Park Avenue. Given the relatively modest size of their Park Ave. co-op, the couple also reportedly owned a second smaller apartment in the building where their staff were housed, an impressive real estate luxury to be sure. The sale of 635 Park Avenue was tawdry, complicated and widely reported by all the New York real estate media and gossips and resulted in the Feds seizing $8,900,000 of the proceeds. Uh oh. Also reportedly sold in 2005 was the 11 bedroom townhouse the couple owned in London's coveted Kensington district. That residence was reported to have been sold for around $25,000,000 (US).

We do feel badly for anyone faced with the collapse of their financial house. It's an uglee mess for anyone to have to deal with. However, we also are hard pressed to believe that the Lord and Lady don't have a pile of money in some off-shore account somewhere that will allow them to restart their lavish, but currently on hold lifestyle. We know nothing and make no claim to knowing anything, but it just makes sense because people this rich simply don't sell everything and move into a tract house in some sad development in the Florida panhandle, you know?

150 comments:

Jeez....it's costing the poor locals room and board for this weasel. Why could'nt they just take all his money and leave him an old Airstream and a pair of clam-diggers and call it even? I would feel sorry for him if he had to leave a place like Rough Point, but Miami? Heat, humidity and cockroaches you could put a saddle on. It will be interesting to see what the market will bear.

Well at least he's not taking a page from Veronica Heart's book. I can admire the proactive "let's dump this colossal money pit now" approach, especially when there's no point in trying to keep up appearances.

But can you imagine Lord and Lady Black settling into a tract home in the Florida panhandle? How delightful would that be to watch?

I would like to beat them both with a stick. She's far too haughty and evil to ever feel shame, but I do hops the minty glares, raised eyebrows and sudden drop in invites to tea sink in in whatever town she currently calls lair.

As a Canadian I don't care how evil the Blacks are, the American government went after him because he isn't one of their own. Of all the white collar criminals, Conrad Black doesn't even make the top 10.

I love this house, way too extravagent but it takes money honey and this place is gorgeous.

And I think Joan Collins and Alan Rickman in the docudrama would be FABULOUS!

"titles like that are basically bought through large charitable donations"

Probably 99% of those titled 'Lord' in the U.K are so through family titles - not donations. Conrad Black is a life peer - which differs from the aristocratic hereditary peers.

"As a Canadian I don't care how evil the Blacks are, the American government went after him because he isn't one of their own."

I'm surprised as a Canadian you're sticking up for him. He renounced his Canadian citizenship & said about Canada, "Canada is turning into a Third World dump run by raving socialists." & also that Canada was "an oppressive little world" - Obviously he was proud of being Canadian!

He was not proud of being Canadian, and he damn well should have been. Instead he opted to hurl himself repeatedly against the English social ladder with his wife clamoring on his shoulders. He became an even bigger pompous ass, his God complex exploded, and now he's in jail.

I stick up for Conrad Black because his negative comments about Canada were said when our former Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, refused to allow Black to accept his peerage in the House of Lords. Chretien did this because his party, the Liberal Party of Canada, had not received positive coverage in Black's newspapers (Black is a Conservative and makes no bones about it). Thus, Chretien chose to get personal on an issue which he really had no business being a part of.

Conrad Black, in previous years, has been very proud to be Canadian. He and Barbara Amiel are residents of Canada and have been active in Canadian high society.

They're greedy, probably rude, maybe even awful but they are hardly the villains they've been depicted as.

Guess I was wrong, the highend markets are finally going to start coming down, the only problem is that there will be no buyer out there to take advantage of the low low prices.

I say we are in this for the next 10 years ?

"The following blog is from LA LAND"

Remember David Lereah? The bullish NAR economist and author of "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust"? Of course you do. Newsweek has an interesting interview with him here. Money quotes:

"We're not at the bottom ... we're not there yet. The leading indicators are still very bad. Pending home sales are still in bad shape. Mortgage applications are low … There's still supply out there in abundance … This thing is going to get worse before it gets better."

More: ""[I] just didn't realize the scope, the extent, the magnitude of the loose underwriting—not looking at incomes and wages, just providing so many mortgage loans based on [expected] future price appreciation rather than the creditworthiness of the borrower," Lereah says. "That got so out of hand, and none of us realized the magnitude of it until it was too late."

Now, then. That clears everything up, doesn't it? Of course it doesn't. Banks and lenders were throwing mortgages at borrowers like throw beads at a Mardi Gras parade, and the NAR "didn't' realize the magnitude of it"? Sorry, not buying it.

HGTV a few years ago was doing shows on homes in the US and they were stunned that homes and estates were going up 500% and now today, the awful truth is finally coming out.

I think conrad blacks place as nice as it is, is only worth 5MM tops in Florida.

I would not be surprised if that is all he gets for it.

this next year is going to be one for the history books, many of the ultra rich are going to end up rich, the rich will go back down to middle class and the poor will get poorer, some of them may even end up in prison.

The head of the NAR now says he did not realize that there were numerous jumbo loans given out based on a persons word / handshake ?

Anon 9:20 - Don't even try. We all know that you are Average Ho as well as anon 9:22 & 9:51.

"My dads taxes have been assessed on the value of his home which now stands at 6MM"

Why was the house reassessed? Remember that you are claiming the house is in California where automatic reassessment doesn't happen.

There are three reasons for a house to be reassessed -

Sale - Taxes are based on new sale price. You buy a house for more than last sale, you will pay more in taxes. You buy for less than last owner, your taxes will be less than theirs.

Expansion - You add on square footage and the house will be reassessed. Generally you will pay more as the addition will add value.

Owner Request - People sometimes request a reassessment if the value has dropped significantly from what they paid. This is in order to save on taxes. No one in their right mind would ask for a reassessment to prove their house has gone UP in value since that is ASKING to pay more taxes.

and according to the law the tax assessor can assessyearly if he wants to 50-100% of the homes true value, which I believe is the reason for prop 13, to protect the low income people from such a catastrophe.

My dad is well off but this market is starting to hurt him financially

enclosed is an article covering a very small portion of what is going on in parts of LA

It looks like my dad is not the only one getting hosed by the man.

*********************************Update from the L.A. County Assessor's office: The office is roughly halfway through a review of 316,000 single-family homes and condos for potential decline in value. The review covers homes purchased between July 1, 2004 and June 30, 2007. Numbers:--186,000 homes have been reviewed.--Assessed values have been reduced on 89,000 homes.--Average reduction in assessed value is $68,400.--Average reduction in property taxes is $684 per house.

A) If your dad paid 1,000,000 CASH for a house in 1998, I would be surprised to find that he can't afford the 100k a year tax bill.

B) If the house is worth 6 Million, there will be buyer if he prices the house at 5. Since he only paid 1mill for it, he's pocketing 4mill and he can buy a home that he can afford. So I'm not sure what the issue is.

c) Acquisition Value Provisions of Prop. 13Section 2 of Article XIIIA of the California Constitution (enacted by Proposition 13) establishes an acquisition-value assessment system. It provides that property is to be assessed at its value when acquired through a change of ownership or by new construction. Thereafter, the taxable value of property may increase annually by no more than the rate of inflation or two percent, whichever is less.

There are certain exceptions: (A) market value, if lower than acquisition value, establishes value for tax purposes; (B) property transferred to a spouse, between parents and children, etc., is not reassessed; (C) certain other changes of ownership, added to Article XIIIA by voter approval in the years since 1978, do not trigger reassessment, and (D) property assessed by the State Board of Equalization, such as property of state-regulated utilities, is not subject to the acquisition value limitation. (See ITT World Communications v. City and County of San Francisco, 1985.)

What I love about these WTF real estate scenarios is that the person in the story always paid cash for the property. "MM" is always used to represent "million." And they're always in a completely illogical crisis. It's like a motif or something.

Yes but in other countries you have to bribe your local officials so that they do not take your land and property by force, at least that is what I have read and heard about from others that now live in LA.

they all want a 80% discount now, very few have money or can get loans and the ones that do or can buy want deep deep discounts.

It looks like 1MM homes will go back down to 50k

and 6MM homes will go back down to 1MM or less

The head of the NAR just said yesterday that there is no bottom in site at this time.

A few years ago he wrote a bestseller,

Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?: The Boom Will Not Bust and Why Property Values Will Continue to Climb Through the End of the Decade - And How to Profit From Them by David Lereah (Hardcover - Feb 22, 2005)

and yesterday he changed his tune, now he admits that real estate is a very very bad investment and he cannot believe the loans that were freely given out over the last 5 years.

He also said that the bottom is no where in sight.

The father needs to convince the city that his home is worth 1MM or less, how he will do that when the comps say otherwise ?

Paranoid schizophrenia is characterized by prominent grandiose delusions and hallucinations that wax and wane across recurrent psychotic episodes. Affected individuals tend to be anxious, frightened, angry, aloof, and argumentative; they may have a superior and patronizing manner and formal or extremely intense interpersonal interactions.

"on sunset plaza in 1998 for 1MM cash... tax bill back then was 15k a year"

Taxes would have been closer to 10k/year

"his tax bill started to go up 10% a year"

Not in California.

"is at 70k a year""it is around 135k for the year"

Which is it? And both are wrong.

"He tried for the HELOC at a fixed rate but was turned down."

To quote one of your own favorite sources (LA Land blog), Even WaMu will open a HELOC for a person with his amount of equity and a credit score over 700. Is your "dad" a complete loser with bad credit?

"[David Lereah] yesterday he changed his tune, now he admits that real estate is a very very bad investment"

Not exactly. The untwisted version of the article, easily verifiable on Newsweek.com -

While he was an economist at NAR, Lereah was also a real estate investor himself, at one point owning 10 condominiums from Virginia to Florida, which he rented out. Today he still owns seven of them, and aside from one that's languishing unrented, the other six are still making money, he says. So even if his forecasting record is mixed, his in-the-trenches investment record appears more solid.

At his new firm he's also looking to cash in on the weak market. He's currently talking with several Wall Street folks about setting up an investment fund that would buy pools of distressed real estate, which it would convert into rentals. "We think there are some very good acquisitions that can be made," he says.

So even if this slump remains far from over, David Lereah still thinks it may be a smart time to buy.

Avg Joe, you my friend have no credibility whatsoever on this site. It is soooo obvious you just posted under 10 different names and are clearly the "son" of this guy who bought a house in Sunset Plaza.

I know which house it is you're refering to.. I've seen it and it's not that spectacular. It's very close to Viewmont and was priced at $5M two years ago and THEN I said they were on crack for asking that much (at least $2M overpiced at that time). The house is ugly, needs to be updated and is very cold...

The home is not on the market anymore and they are shopping it around as a "pocket listing"... I almost fell out of my chair when a guy in my office said he had a pocket listing and it was this place!!

This home is a crumby comparison to what's happening in the market Avg Joe... bad example!! Boooooo!!!!!!

Come Mr Joe we have to go now,I have a car waiting outside to take you to our state of the art facility Shady Winds,oh and yes your dad has to go too.What's in that paper bag?A hundred grand in cash!I'll take that it should just about cover all our fees and your medication.

Anon 1:01PM you ARE average joe... stop with the split personalities! Also, I didn't say the house was on Viewmont, I said it was near.

Taxes DO NOT go up unless, as was said before, you do something to have them re-assessed in LA (add sq footage/ refi etc).

THEY DO NOT GO UP OVER TIME OTHERWISE. That would mean your "dad's" taxes would be the same as when he bought it...

I know DOZENS of people that bought their homes a while ago and their houses are worth millions more now and their taxes have not gone up!!

Why do you think they have a tax exemption law for elderly people to buy homes of equal to less value of what they sell their homes for??? Because they've paid such low taxes over the past 40 years... FOR EXAMPLE: THEIR TAXES DIDN'T GO UP.

Stop with the bullshit. You are completely lying and/or wrong about your situation

A) There are 19 houses in Area 3 that are in escrow/have accepted offers. 9 out of the 19 are priced between 600k-1 million. The rest are above. 4 of the 19 are priced at 3+ million.

To say that no one has money to buy these expensive homes is stupid. And don't try to tell me that these will all fall out of escrow because I can say with 99.9% certainty that all of the offers were submitted with prequals.

B) You still don't seem to understand that in the state of California, the most your father's property tax would go up would be 2% PER YEAR!!!! Based on your "story," his taxes should be no higher than $10,000 +~200(10). There is NO WAY that his property taxes have risen to the number you claim. CANT YOU READ??????????? PROPERTY TAXES DO NOT GO UP SIMPLY BECAUSE THE VALUE GOES UP!!! READ PROP 13.

Go get the California tax code. Or consult one of those lawyers you claim to have on retainer.

Here is how it works in California (and you can verify this online so don't come back with a stupid answer) -

California real estate taxes are between 1% and 1.06% of the sale price. So your million dollar sale had state taxes around $10,500.00/year in 1998.

Each year, the county assessor CAN increase the assessed value of your house but there is a limit of a MAXIMUM increase of 2% per year. That is a MAXIMUM. They don't do the MAXIMUM every year.

So assuming your "dad's" house was 1 million in 1998, no expansion of the square footage, and did have the MAXIMUM increase of 2% each year (which it didn't), his assessed value in 2008 is 1,195,093.00.

Again assume the worst case scenario of a tax rate of 1.06%, his taxes for 2008 will be 12,667.98.

"Proposition 13, officially titled the "People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation," was a ballot initiative to amend the constitution of the state of California. The initiative was enacted by the voters of California on June 6, 1978. It would eventually be upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U.S. 1 (1992). Proposition 13 is embodied in Article 13A of the California Constitution.

"The most significant portion of the act is the first paragraph, which """"capped""""" real estate taxes:“ SECTION 1. (a) The MAXIMUM amount of any ad valorem tax on real property shall not exceed One percent (1%) of the full cash value of such property. The one percent (1%) tax to be collected by the counties and apportioned according to law to the districts within the counties.

-----------This "assessed value," however, may only be increased by a maximum of 2% per year, until and unless the property is resold-------------------

1MM get a 100k place5MM get a 500k place10MM get a 1MM place100MM get a 10MM place300MM get a 30MM place

That seems to be the pattern that the wealthy follow when they buy so that they can stay in their place for decades to come and not have to resort to putting themselves into a financial crisis when a bad storm comes along.

Uh, Prop 13 (what I posted) has been embodied into the California Constitution, which last I checked, is for everybody, not just the poor. Lol.And buddy, you're going to wish you didn't ask me this. But from April 1, 2008 till today, 27 homes have been sold in AREA 3 (Sunset Strip Hills)

I think values are really going to come down now as many of the ultra rich and the rich are going to lose their homes and have fire sales, you see the FBI is part of the middle class, and they are PISSED !!!!!!!!!!!

Hou would you like to go out there and fight day after day risking your life everyday only to see your net worth plummet by 30% and most of it was in your home ?

pissed off jack. maybe you should read what Warren Buffet things about CA property taxes. here is a quote from the OC Register.

Buffett cited the inequity of property taxes he pays on his homes in Omaha, Neb., and Laguna Beach, Calif., and said the California cap on property taxes imposed by Prop. 13 "makes no sense."

His $500,000 house in Omaha has a tax bill of $14,401. His $4 million house in Laguna Beach has a tax bill of $2,264. The taxes on his Omaha home increased $1,920 this year, compared with $23 on the Laguna Beach home, he said.

The Las Vegas housing-market crash represents a turnaround since 2003, when the local economy and real estate were booming.

``If you had anything on the ball, you could make it happen in Vegas,'' said real estate agent Donna Marie Gold, 62, who built a $4.5 million fortune buying and selling properties over six years.

After failing to complete a single sale last year, Gold said she fell $22,000 short each month on payments needed to maintain 14 properties. Now two to four months behind on some mortgage payments, she's lost access to a $250,000 Wells Fargo & Co. equity credit line.

`New York Minute'

``The whole thing was upside down in a New York minute,'' Gold said. ``There needs to be some forgiveness in this climate with regards to credit and rebuilding one's credit.''

How can you go from 200k to 4.5MM net worth back down to zero in 6 years ?

The RE industry is worse than the casinos, at least when you lose at the casinos, it happens instantly, you can cry and rebuild again !!!!!

Now I think that RE market will be down for at least 20 years, there is no trust with the banks anymore, they are worse than loan sharks.

Now what I do not understand is that if one has an excellent credit score, why would they go with a ghetto lender like country wide, that loans money at very high interest rates to potential dead beats and illegals ?

There will be comprehensive courses in statistics and economics for those NOT interested in wallpaper, style and furniture. I will be leafing through the William Morris designs in the Sanderson catelog.

No one knows what will happen in the next 6 months, a year, or even 5 years but I am sure it will be ones for the history books and it will be interesting to see if the new owners can make the previous sellers give them back a huge portion of the money that was in the inflated prices to begin with.

Now that it is coming out that fraud it the real culprit that has pushed the prices to unprecedented levels.

Now no one really knows what a home is worth these days.

I am sure many lawsuits will be filed by the ultra rich against the ultra rich in the months and years to come.

If the poor and middle class are just mailing in the keys and walking away, what is to prevent a Harry Gold from suing a Jim Diamond and getting 18MM back on a 22MM estate Harry just got ?

And yes the unfortunate now broke realtor's are going to be put in the middle of the disputes.

Time will tell but I can say that talk of that is already starting in the social circles at the yacht clubs and country clubs where I frequent at in LA.

If the prices drop 50-80% like the media says it will in the prime parts of LA, there will be no shortage of lawsuits for years to come.

Only in America do Kobe,O.J. & Blake go free, while petty vindictiveness results ib Black being imprisoned.Say what you want about the snobbishness & opulent lifestyle of this couple, but the fact is he is a brilliant man who has written many widely read books on historical figures, ^ she us a renowned writer on ger own.He was railroaded in the States, whereas he would have been reprimanded in Canada.Why did Bush's brother not be imprisoned for the savings & loan scandal??

stpaulsnowman, How much you wanna bet the majority of those are "avearage joe" talking to himself? His "ed from westwood" days are probably from before you got here but the elder children remember that alias.

Conrad Black (His Lardship) and his gruesome wife Barbara Amielticket (Morticia) are just suffering a big, big karma blowback. His Lardship renounced his Canadian citizenship as "uncompetitive" so that he could take a seat in the British House of Lards, an undemocratic and anachronistic institution, and now can't serve his sentence in Canada, where softer parole rules would have meant release about three years earlier than he will get out of Coleman.

He thought the USA was the cat's whiskers, the greatest place on earth, and even wanted to dissolve Canada and merge with the USA.

He thought he was sooooo-soooo smart, but then he went and stole FROM THE RICH in the USA.